Bachelorette will deal with contestant’s death “delicately,” “respectfully”

Hill died in a paragliding accident while production was going on, though he was not still part of the show. Producers told Andi and the remaining contestants, Chris Harrison told ABC News: “We never would have kept it from them. He was a good friend of theirs.”

Earlier, executive producer Mike Fleiss told E! News that “this transcends everything, certainly a television show.” He also said, “It’s a bizarre predicament that we never expected to be in, but our problems aren’t important. It’s about his family now. My heart goes out to them. I pray for them and my staff, they’re just wrecked.”

As to how the broadcast will deal with his death, Chris Harrison both said that “we’re not sure 100 percent of how we’re going to deal with it” and sounded like they’ve already made some decisions: “We did the best we could trying to be as honorable and decent to the family and to him. It was really something we’d never dealt with before but we did it as delicately and respectfully as we could.”

Chris Harrison told People that Eric was “a big part of the show. We all took a moment to step back and reflect and respect Eric and his family. We wanted to really take it all in and let ourselves mourn a little bit. Now that we’ve been mourning and dealing with it personally, we have to deal with it professionally.”

How exactly they’ll do that isn’t clear, but he said, “But I feel like every decision we make, will be out of respect.” He also said, “It’s something we’ve never dealt with on the show. It didn’t only affect our cast, but also our crew who worked closely with him.”

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about Andy Dehnart

Andy Dehnart’s writing and criticism about television, culture, and media has appeared on NPR and in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Pacific Standard, and other publications. He has covered reality television for more than 18 years, and created reality blurred in 2000.

A member of the Television Critics Association, Andy, 40, directs the journalism program at Stetson University in Florida, where he teaches creative nonfiction and journalism. He has an M.F.A. in nonfiction writing and literature from Bennington College. More about reality blurred and Andy.

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reality blurred is your guide to the world of reality TV and unscripted entertainment, with reality show reviews, news, and analysis. It was created in 2000 by Andy Dehnart. He's still writing and publishing it today.

reality blurred is regularly updated with highlights from the world of reality TV: news and analysis; behind-the-scenes reports; interviews with reality TV show cast members and producers; and recaps and reviews of these reality TV shows, including Survivor, Big Brother, The Great British Baking Show, Shark Tank, The Amazing Race, The Bachelor, Project Runway, Dancing with the Stars, Top Chef, and many more.